Call for Papers

Marxism & Sciences: A Journal of Nature, Culture, Human and Society

Volume 3 - Issue 1

Winter 2024

Centennial of Evald Ilyenkov - 1

Rejuvenating the Revolutionary Essence of Marxist Theory

Guest Editor:

Siyaves Azeri

The year 2024 marks the 100th birthday of the independent Marxist Soviet philosopher, Evald Ilyenkov, who is undoubtedly one of the most original, sophisticated, and ambidextrous thinkers of the 20thcentury. Ilyenkov’s interest and works cover a vast territory from problems regarding method, dialectical logic, epistemology, the relation between philosophy and sciences to ethics, humanism, philosophy and critique of education, education of people with disabilities, the concepts of human activity and the ideal.

From his very first substantial contribution to Marxist philosophy titled “Theses on the Question of the Interrelation of Philosophy and Knowledge of Nature and Society in the Process of their Historical Development”, coauthored with Valentine Korovikov and presented in 1954 at Moscow State University, to his later works on the “universal”, the “ideal”, the relation between Marxism, humanism, and the sciences, and his criticism of positivism and official diamat, which influenced a whole generation of later philosophers and thinkers, there is a thematic, methodological and conceptual unity in Ilyenkov’s philosophical approach at the top of which comes his conceptualization of philosophy as the method or a (critical) theory of knowledge, the main subject-matter of which is (theoretical) thought.

In Ilyenkov’s view, philosophy is a science that aims at the universal (the general—obshchii), where the universal refers to the common generic root of diverse phenomena—concepts. Concept is the “ideal” reconstruction of necessary essential interrelations between phenomena; hence, philosophy appears as the science of the ideal, that is, philosophy is the science or the method of analyzing concept-formation and conceptual thinking; in this sense, philosophy is the science or the theory of knowledge (in general). Since concepts are producible only in thinking/thought, philosophy turns to be the science of the method of thinking—what Ilyenkov refers to as materialist dialectics.

In his battle against vulgar materialism that then was represented by official diamat, Machism, and positivism, Ilyenkov persistently elaborated a concept of thought as something objective and real, irreducible to physiology, that is, to the activity in the brain/mind. Ilyenkov is a genuine Marxist philosopher that aims at rejuvenating the revolutionary essence of Marxism with reference to the concept of praxis as a philosophical category (as presented in Marx’s “Theses on Feuerbach”) and the central role of human activity as the middle term relating thinking and being, i.e., to conceive of praxis as the source of reality and the “this-sidedness” of thought. His subsequent defense of Lenin against neo-positivism and mechanism is also rooted in the former’s attributing an epistemological meaning to praxis, in contrast to something “practical”, commonsensically understood, or pragmatic, and his conceiving of Marxist materialist philosophy a domain independent of sciences—opposite to positivistic scientism.

We contend that Ilyenkov’s philosophical-theoretical heritage can contribute to many of the contemporary debates concerning AI, “thinking” machines, deep “learning”, automation, the rise of digital technology and the debates around automation, autonomy, and emergent forms of subjectivity, (crisis in) education and pedagogy, epistemology, knowledge-production and envisioning a communist future.

Marxism & Sciences calls for contributions to commemorate the centennial of Evald Ilyenkov. We invite authors from different domains of sciences and philosophy to submit papers articulating various aspects of Ilyenkov’s philosophical approach thematically and/or historically and getting into dialogue with it in relation to contemporary debates concerning, but not limited to:

· The significance of the concepts of activity and praxis in response to “new” materialisms and idealisms

· The significance of the concept of ideal in debates concerning system theory and cybernetics

· The relation of materialist dialectical method elaborated by Ilyenkov to Marx’s Capitaland Hegel’s Logic

· The concepts of the “concrete”, the “abstract”, the “universal” and the “particular” and their significance in cognition and language, and the formation of mind

· The role and significance of materialist dialectical method as practical materialism in the face of polycrisis

· A Philosophy of education inspired by Ilyenkov’s conceptualization of thinking and the role of pedagogy in the process of humanization

· Epistemology and knowledge-production

· The relation between philosophy and the sciences

· Humanism, ethics, and the sciences

· Human activity and techno-scientific determinism

· The ideal, AI and digital technology, and theories/philosophies of mind

· Philosophical psychology

· Communism and its realizability

We particularly encourage authors to submit contributions that develop an Ilyenkovian approach in different spheres as much as interpretations of his thoughts historically and in relation to contemporary subjects.

Please submit your complete manuscripts, ideally 8000 to 12.000 words long, no later than October 30, 2023 to the guest editor of the issue, Siyaves Azeri [email protected]

For guideline please consult https://marxismandsciences.org/guideline-for-authors/